My Most Cringe-Worthy Moment

With a title like this, you would think this post pertains to my children. Like the time I took Kitty to see Earth, Wind & Fire. Chris Botti was their opening act. If you don’t know who he is, he is a jazz trumpeter and a little piece of blond male perfection. After his performance, he was doing a meet and greet. I hustled Kitty over there so he could meet his bride to be: ME! We stood in line and when it was our turn, he signed my CD and made small talk as I envisioned our wedding day. Then he turned to Kitty and said, "How are you tonight?" She looked at him and responded, "I’m here to see Earth Wind & Fire". Yep: cringe-worthy and that’s why he isn’t her new daddy!

Anyhoo, there is a moment that is even worse than that. We have to go back several years, to when I was about 18. Okay: a LOT of years. It was summer, and instead of my usual crew I was hanging out with a couple of sisters that I knew from school. We were going up to Lake George to go dancing. However, they first wanted to stop at Duffy’s to say hi to their parents and to have a drink with them. Hey: they were my ride so I said of course that’s fine! Famous last words…

So we got to Duffy’s and went in. They spotted their parents so we went up to chat. There was a man playing the piano and singing. It was an older crowd and I was hoping that we could leave soon. I had dancing to do!

After a little while I noticed the piano player, probably in his late 40s or early 50s, was looking at me and smiling. I kind of smiled back and then resumed my conversation. But when his current song ended, I looked around and he motioned to me. My friends said, "Oh he must want to meet you!" Why? But because I had been raised to be polite, I went over to the piano. He said, "You are the loveliest girl in the room. I’d like to sing a special song for you. Please sit here with me." I was a little dubious about this, but said "Okay thank you." So he turned to the crowd and announced, "I’d like to sing my favorite Fats Waller song for you and this special young lady." He then began to sing ‘Black and Blue’.

In case you are not familiar with this song, some of the lyrics are: "’Cause you’re black, folks think you lack, They laugh at you, and scorn you too. What did I do to be so black and blue". Seriously. You can google the rest of the lyrics.

I was mortified. All I could think was WTF? "’How will it end? Ain’t got a friend, My only sin is my skin, What did I do to be so black and blue." And this man was smiling at me and singing to me like it was his crowning achievement. As God is my witness: this is true. And I had to sit there until that excruciating song was over.

After the wild applause from the crowd (did they think this was an act?) the gentleman turned to me and said, "I just love Fats Waller and I’m so glad I got to perform that song for you." I’m thinking ‘are you crazy????’ but I was raised to be polite so I said, "Well…um, thanks." I stood up but he grabbed my hand and said, "Won’t you stay? I’d love to buy you a drink and get acquainted." Instead of saying, "Not on your life old man!" I just told him I was with friends and we were leaving. Then I beat a hasty retreat.

My friends thought it was great! They had never been sung to before and were a little envious. Yep: that’s the mentality that they had. All I wanted to do was get out of there and shake those lyrics from my mind. But as you can see by this post: that never happened!

Oh, if only it had been Chris Botti playing a romantic tune on his trumpet: that would have been an entirely different story!